Creative Gift Giving

...you mentioned that it is hard to buy Christmas gifts for Lisa because she liked experiences rather than things. My wife is the same way. On top of it, my wife doesn't like to plan... my primary gift to her has been a date plan for the upcoming year. I try to plan at least one activity that we can do together each month for the upcoming year. It is a great gift because she likes the activities and we both like to have plans we can look forward to. I can usually plan at least the first 9 months of the upcoming year. After that it can get difficult because schedules are not available that far out.

Activities have included theater tickets (which she likes and I don't but I like her so I love to go), concert tickets (Casting Crowns and Toby Mac this year - woo-hoo!), an occasional sports ticket (minor league hockey this year), pottery classes, glass making classes, Discover SCUBA classes, an occasional weekend trip as the budget allows, and other things like that. I will not do the typical dinner and a movie date and it can be tricky ... sometimes we have to drive which can turn it into a full day activity - which is better for the Quality Time people...Some of the plans I have made in the past have even been free. I have found it is not about how much money I spend on her but that I was being intentional in planning activities that we can do together.

Christmas morning package presentation has included just giving her tickets (which is no fun), photo albums with pictures of what we are going to do, and calendars. I would be interested in your thoughts on ideas of more things to do and ways to present them on Christmas morning in a package that can be unwrapped.

We are glad you are back broadcasting regular episodes. We started listening at about episode 30 so we missed you while you were gone.